Research contents
Learning objects and learning design
Learning interaction and networked communities
Informal eLearning
Funded projects

Continuous Social Learning in Knowledge Networks

LTRI is part of a 13 partner consortium that has been funded by the EC's Framework 7 programme for a project entitled MATURE. MATURE investigates continuous social learning in knowledge networks. LTRI have been awarded circa £360,000 over 4 years, within a total project award of 9 million Euros. It is part of the call ICT-2007.4.1 (Digital Libraries and Technology-Enhanced Learning). MATURE is a Framework 7 Larger-Scale Integrated Project. The scientific co-ordinator of the project is Universität Karlsruhe in Germany, a former partner on the completed FP5 project Learning in Process (LIP). The project started on April 1st, 2008.

LTRI have a wide-ranging role in this project that includes: evaluation; design and development methodologies suitable for complex social software; theoretical and conceptual input to the underlying knowledge maturing model and designs of prototypes; and, specialist input to learning dialogue, learning design, informal learning and mobile learning aspects. We have the particular responsibility for the Evaluation Work-package (WP6) led by John Cook, with Claire Bradley and Tom Boyle also playing a key role. The project has successfully passed its first three reviews, each time being awarded the highest rating of “Good to excellent”.

Aims

The agility of organizations has become the critical success factor for competitiveness in a world characterized by an accelerating rate of change. Agility requires that companies and their employees together and mutually dependently learn and develop their competencies efficiently in order to improve productivity of knowledge work. Failures of organisation-driven approaches to technology-enhanced learning and the success of community-driven approaches in the spirit of Web 2.0 have shown that for that agility we need to leverage the intrinsic motivation of employees to engage in collaborative learning activities, and combine it with a new form of organisational guidance. For that purpose, MATURE conceives individual learning processes to be interlinked (the output of a learning process is input to others) in a knowledge-maturing process in which knowledge changes in nature. This knowledge can take the form of classical content in varying degrees of maturity, but also involves tasks & processes or semantic structures. The goal of MATURE is to understand this maturing process better, based on empirical studies, and to build tools and services to reduce maturing barriers.

MATURE’s outcome will be:

1. an analysis of real-world maturing practices, resulting in a sound general conceptual model of the knowledge maturing process and ways to overcome barriers to it (particularly including motivational and social)
2. a Personal Learning & Maturing Environment (PLME), embedded into the working environment, enabling and encouraging the individual to engage in maturing activities within communities and beyond
3. an Organisational Learning & Maturing Environment (OLME), enabling the organisation to analyze and to take up community activities, to reseed innovation processes and to apply guiding strategies
4. reusable Maturing Services for seeding and reseeding, and creating awareness of maturing-relevant individual and community activities.

MATURE brings together an experienced multi-disciplinary team of outstanding experts. To leverage their combined skills, it utilizes a participatory design methodology, involving companies inside and outside the consortium. MATURE also has an extensive associate partner network to maximize the project impact.

MATURE project website: http://mature-ip.eu/

Download brochure about the project [PDF format]

Press release 31/3/08 [PDF format]

Contact details

For further information contact:

Colin Rainey, c.rainey@londonmet.ac.uk

Last updated 18 December, 2012